The Protector of The Shadows
by St. Envy
Summary: Kumori had been abandoned and taken in then thrown back in the same year, but can konoha's 17 year old bad boy turn his heart around for her and his little brother's sake? ItachiXOC SasukeOC


A single sigh from a black haired Uchiha boy broke the six foot ice of the crisp cool fall morning, and of course Sakura couldn't quit swooning over the emo boy who really couldn't care about anybody or anything. The unusual part of the morning was Kakashi was on time for once, in a state of awareness, waiting for something to happen. What was even worse, Naruto was three and a half hours late and Sakura was worried..

"Guys, we need to look for Naruto. He's always the first one here, never the latest." Sakura looked up at her sen-sei with a look of shock, panic, and worry. He looked at her and put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm getting worried..." she was fumbling with her dress, which she did when she got worried about her friend, confidant, and team mate.

"Good riddance, if you ask me." Sasuke remarked, after a shrug of the shoulders. He was enjoying the peace and quiet of the morning and couldn't have cared less about where the annoying and hyper blonde kid was at.

"Well, nobody asked you!" Sakura snapped and slapped her hand over her mouth. _'How and why in the world did I say that to Sasuke-kun?!'_Sasuke's eyes widened and he felt something odd, but pleasurable inside his pale and medium sized chest. Even Kakashi was surprised at his female student smarting off to her love interest like a snapping turtle after a worm.

"I can't believe you just said that to me... No girl has ever told me that before.." Sasuke looked at her as she hid behind Kakashi-san and thought to himself _'Wow Sakura.. i'm starting to like you a little, your getting feisty, dye your hair black and wear some eyeliner i might be going after you..NOT'_

"Well I did!" she quit caring about him or anything else, all she cared about was Naruto and if he was ok or not.. "Let's go find Naruto before anything or anyone else does!" and she was off like a streak of lightning.

"Women.." Kakashi commented monotonously.. he never understood women at all and he had his share of blood, sex, and booze for a loooonnngggg time...

"Ditto, wonder whats wrong with her?" he wondered out loud... And the hunt for Naruto began..

* * *

While the rest of the team was looking for him the Akatsuki's newest edition of the group was also hunting for the same blonde headed fox den.. She was a tall medium sized woman, around 16. Her name spoke for itself, Kumori Hogoshia, protector of the shadows.. Her first mission from her new found and deadly family was to fetch the foxes protector and dispose of the body.. a risky one, but a risk she was willing to take... Her original family threw her on the streets of the Uchiha manor, so naturally after a mission for the anbu, Itachi found a girl a year younger than him shivering and alone. So he took her in and trained her himself. The major shock of Itachi's life was practicly as soon as he could turn around he found her catching up to him.. after he felt no need for him to take care of her anymore he kissed her on the forehead and transported her off to a village not to far away.. the sound village.

She spent the rest of the time away improving her skills and eventually illiminated Kunan and took his place as Pein's friend and long time partner. After a few months of training with the Akatsuki she realized how much she had needed Itachi to be her guidance and wanted to take Kisame's place as his partner.. She secretly fell in love with him after the long time being near him, but she new he had no interest in love and dating so she let it go...

After a few minutes she found a small blonde boy in the woods hurt badly, being an S rank fugitive she decided to help him out. After all she had being walking for hours and was tired, so it was the perfect excuse to sit down for a while.. She removed the Akatsuki cloak and wrapped it up as a make-shaft pillow for the boy, reviling her black clothing, a black tee shirt and jeans with ninja sandals. She took off his clothing and began putting a healing ointment the sword scars and wounds of a sword, kunia, throwing stars, and other dangerous weapons.

_'I'm surprised he's even alive with scratchs like this, seriously.' _she thought to herself. She has long dark red hair, icy blue eyes and wears a lot of eyeliner. her nails painted a hot pink and her ring was placed in the same place as Pein's former partner.. At a shockingly young 10 years old she spent her youth training with the snake-looking sannin and biggest threat to her home village. After she hit eleven she was thrown to the Uchiha clan by her parents and thrown back to Orochimaru by Itachi and his deceased family and shaken up brother. After a constant heartbreak after heartbreak she sealed every crack and hole in her fragile heart, and put her emotions on lockdown.

After a while naruto woke up groggy and looked beside him to see the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. As she looked into his ocean blue eyes, his face lit up a cherry red and he thought _'God, she's absolutely gorgeous.' _after which they began to talk for a while and ended up telling each other there life stories. She had a warm look on her face, despite the icy blue of her eyes and her ivory skin. She answered every question he had for her. The longer they talked the quicker she realized how similar they were and how she was somehow connected to him and Sasuke by Itachi and Kakashi. He couldn't believe how strong she appeared to be yet how delicate her Ivory skin had to be. "Hey Kumori." she looked over to him

"Yea, Naruto.." He looked in the direction of konoha, headed a sharp west, as did she.

"Can you help me find my way home?" he asked her shyly. He had never got used to asking people, especially girls, for help. He was more or less a do it yourself person. As was she, she hated asking anyone but Itachi for help.

She stood up and looked around for a moment. He looked up at her and she looked down. He got up a few minutes later and felt only two feet tall, his head coming up to her collarbone and still has to look up to her, both physically and emotionally. She grinned at him and giggled lightly. "Yea, I can help you find your way home. How old did you say you were again?" He felt so ashamed because she was so tall and curvaceous and he was short and scrawny that he turned around and hid behind a tree. She walked over to the tree and put her hand on his shoulder "Don't be embarrassed because i'm taller, it's just 'cuz I'm a few years older than you."

Once again he looked up at her, with a little smile. "Let's go home ok? I'm starving." She looked down at him _'this kid is special, he's gonna run this village one day. I can already tell..' _They began the lengthy walk back to konoha.

"Wait.." she said just as they exited the forest "I forgot my cloak..." saying it lowly as she could

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Team seven had been walking around for hours and after a long while they had found an Akatsuki cloak and bracelet with her initials engravedin it. "This belongs to an old friend of mine..." Sasuke said reluctingly. K~H. "She was like a sister to me, when I was little we would laugh and play and she even helped with training after _it _happened. She took care of me untill she died.." Sasuke bit his lip and a single tear ran down his cheek, but he turned away so nobody would see it. "When I was ten years old she took me in, she was thirteen. You couldn't confuse her with anyone, Icy blue eyes that could melt anyone, long dark red hair that looked like a raging fire and Ivory skin so white it resembled the first winter's fallen snow.." Sakura couldn't believe that he knew how to describe anyone like that...

"Sasuke I'm so sorry, when did it happen?" she put her arms around him as Kakashi held his shoulder tightly.. "If it's to painful you don't have to say anything..." He put his arms around her and told the entire story..

"When it was only Itachi and me, her parents left her at our house because of how powerful she was. Itachi tookher in and started training her, even tho my parents hated her. She quickly caught up to him and even beat him once or twice, she comforted me when I would get scared and I loved her like a sister. Itachi got the will power to keep going and even unlocked the full potential of our bloodline from training with her.." he continued with the story.. but the hardest part was yet to come. "She and Itachi went on a three month mission.. she never came back, he came back crying. The family gave him such a hard time that he went berserk and slaughtered the entire family, but spared me.." Sakura had tears in her eye and Kakashi had a heavy sympathy for him.

"Sasuke-kun, why is there an akatsuki cloak next to her bracelet?" He looked to the neatly folded cloak and pondered a bit. It wasn't like any other one, it was diffrent. The thing hugged a figure so it had to be a woman's or a gay man.

Meanwhile the shadow that appered to belong to a tree was actually Kumori, her kekki-genkai allowed her many things. One of which included molding into different shadows of objects and certain people, It was the first stage of her bloodline trait. _'Sasuke-chan... I can't believe how much he has grown, I've missed him so much..'_

"I hate to push you off the corner of Child street and memory lane but we need to look for Naruto..." _'_

_Kakashi? Naruto? damn do I know all these people.. Except the one with awesome pink hair..' _She decided to help them out without exposing herself as an akatsuki member and turned the area around them darker with the help of the tree's. A ghostly voice began to talk within mid-air and none of them knew what was going on. "Sasuke..... Kakashi... Naruto is safely in Tsunade's hands.... He is worried about you.... Go back to the village..." Sakura grabbed on to Sasuke and Kakashi grabbed them both.

"What's going on?" Sakura trembled and held on with dear life. She couldn't believe what was going on.

"Do not be afraid..... I am only here to help..... Naruto has been taken care of... Now go.."

"Not until you tell us who or what the hell you are!" Kakashi commanded. He was tired, hungry and confused and planed on finding out who or what the hell was going on. They had searched all day and it was becoming dark without anyone Else's help.

"Simple... I am the darkness that frightens little kids... I am the protector of the shadows..." She replied in a creepy and almost indecisive voice. it sounded more like an echo than an actual person talking. Creepy.

A shadowed figure walked up to the trio from the shadows of the trees that had been dead dark thanks to the deadly bloodline passed down from her mother

She was tall, curvaceous and seemed friendly. All you could see of the silhouette was Icy blue eyes covered by a lot of eyeliner. Kumori walked over to the cloak and picked it up.. "This belongs to me thank you....." she said to the three..

"Who are you?" Kakashi said wearily. He had a bad feeling since early this morning and he knew something was going down. She hadn't givin her name because Sasuke would have flipped his top when he heard correctly. "Where did you come from?"

"Well, I'm 16..." She started..

_'The same as Kumori would have been.' _

"I abandoned my old village and came back.. then I took a few teachers along the way.. and now I'm in the akatsuki.. but I'm no harm to you all."

Kakashi and the other two had to wonder how a sixteen year old got into the akatsuki. There were so many questions on the tips of there tongues that she told them her story of how she got from Konoha to the sound village and back. Telling them about the people she trained with and the friends she made on the way and back.

"So.... your telling us that you've been in every village seeking the 'kage to train you for a year at a time?" Sasuke summed it all up very well and she nodded. He'd like to take a look at the woman hidden by the continuously shadowed silhouette with an akatsuki cloak clinging to her body..

"Yes, and if in case the leader is too old or uninterested I find the strongest among the villagers and train as long as I can get away with." she explained and they all fell for the fake story she was telling them. There was no way in hell that she was telling complete strangers and if she had told Sasuke he would have known who she was.

"I wanna see your face, step out of the shadows." Kakashi commanded. He wanted to know who had been looking after his student.

"No can do.. All will be revealed in time." She knelt down on one knee and disappered in a hurricane of fire.

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Authors note: If you guys want me to update leave a review on how much you like it and what can be improved


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